


This Ain't No Dream We're Living Through

by city_bright



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 00:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12693303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/city_bright/pseuds/city_bright
Summary: My take on the two hours Danny spent in Mindy's office in 6x09





	This Ain't No Dream We're Living Through

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is kind of all over the place, but so is Danny, so I'm hoping it works lol

He says a prayer that he was able to sneak into Mindy's office without anyone noticing because he’s not in the mood to be corralled into the ever present antics of Shulman and Associates. He says another prayer for good measure to give him the strength to confront his mother about keeping her cancer diagnoses from him. It baffles him that she would do this because he’s her son, and she's his mother, and if that isn’t a strong enough bond or relationship to tell each other these things, then what is?

He punches the air a few times and paces around to release the pent up frustration that’s been brewing ever since Jeremy told him the news. He had to hear it from Jeremy of all people too, and that hurt as much as the diagnosis. He has nothing against Jeremy and he had only meant well when he called him to send his regards and ask how she was doing, but there’s something twisted about finding out that your mother has cancer from an ex-work colleague. If his mother couldn't tell him, then he supposes Mindy would be the next best thing, but even she, the woman who is terrible at keeping anything to herself, didn't tell him. He feels conspired against and like he got punched in the stomach at the same time, and it makes him want to fight back kicking and screaming.

He sighs and decides to do some sit ups, the restlessness and need to do something physical growing stronger with every ticking second. He gets up to one hundred before collapsing on Mindy’s rug, and he doesn’t feel any better than before, but at least her rug is comfortable. His breathing is heavy and he can see the little indentations in her ceiling, and he wonders how many times Mindy has been in the same spot, looking at the same patterns as he is. He presses the edge of his palms hard into his eyes before letting his arms fall to the side. There’s something nice about feeling the hard ground under him because it feels like it’s the one thing in his life right now he can count on being there. Maybe Mindy is onto something. He’ll never tell her though.

He turns his head to the right, towards the door, half expecting to see her lying there with him, half wondering what it’d be like if she were. He slightly twitches his index and middle finger, yearning for something that isn’t there, and he stands up and groans because nope, Mindy betrayed him and he can’t see himself forgiving her for that in the near future.

He twists his torso back and forth, swinging his arms around and stretching his back because as comfortable as her rug is, lying down on a hard floor never does his back any favors. He's still antsy, and he eyes her bookshelf, which doesn’t seem to have any order to them and it bothers him more than it should, so he takes it upon himself to organize it. Upon closer inspection, the books aren’t organized alphabetically by title nor by author or even by height, so the taller books are creating dips and peaks among the shorter ones. He pulls one of her pristine white chairs closer to him so he has a place to stack her books, studying the title of each one as he goes. There are the usual celebrity autobiographies, a handful of medical journals scattered here and there, a Dora the Explorer book, which is a little odd, but not really, it’s a great show. He comes across the cookbook, if he could even call it that, her friends gave her for her birthday years ago - Microwave Cooking For One - and he’s surprised she even kept it.

He mindlessly removes her picture frames and places them on her desk before grabbing a Kleenex or two to wipe off the dust that has collected on the shelf. He organizes her books alphabetically by title first, but the end result doesn't look quite right, so he does it again and organizes them by author, and it still doesn’t look like it belongs in her office. It seems too organized for Mindy who is notoriously unorganized. He settles for color coding them, and it looks much better against her even more colorful space, so he begins to put back the photos and little knick knacks, trying to remember where they were last placed. There are some photos of her parents, her friends he hasn’t seen or heard about in years, a celebrity he doesn’t remember the name of, and of course photos of their son, but a photo of him, Mindy and Leo catches his eye. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised to see it, but he is, seeing their past selves smiling back at him. He places it front and center and turns away from the bookshelf, wondering what else he could do to pass the time and get his mind off things.

He takes a seat on the chair in the corner of her office and stares out the window. It’s a nice day out, and he hates the stark contrast between its beauty and the dark grey clouds moving into his life. It makes him want to pull down the blinds just so he doesn’t have to see the weather mock him. He leans back against the chair and closes his eyes in hopes that he can somehow shut away his problems and act like his life didn’t just turn upside down. It doesn’t work, it never does, but it was nice to pretend that it might, even for a split second. A wild thought sweeps through his mind about the other rare moments he’s sat in this chair. It’s unexpected and gone as quickly as it came, just like the wind, but it’s enough to shake him. There’s something about getting reacquainted with Mindy’s space that makes him uneasy for reasons he can’t bother to explain or understand.

He moves to sit in her chair at her desk, slowly swiveling around and around until his head starts to spin, and he rests his head on the desk and sighs, wondering how his life, his family’s life, got to where it is. He thought his mother would be untouchable from the unforgiving nature of cancer or of any illness. She spent the majority of her life picking up the pieces, keeping everyone and everything together, and working so hard that he never thought cancer would claim her. Even as a doctor, he thought cancer and other ailments only happened to other people, and most certainly not his mother. It’s just something he never imagined or let himself imagine, and he doesn’t know how to cope with it. He can’t compartmentalize all the emotions running through his veins because they’re all blurring together, but anger, he knows, is at the forefront. It somehow always is. 

He hears Mindy’s famously high pitched voice flying outside her office, and he can feel his frustration beginning to boil. He moves to the front of her desk, crossing his arms to shield him against himself, against the situation life has dealt him, and braces himself. She opens the door and all logic and thought flies out the window, his frustration finally overflowing and seeping into his skin.

_Traditore._


End file.
